Charlemagne: Europe’s candidate for President

Date: 06/03/04

Why Europeans are rooting for John Kerry

AS JOHN KERRY girds himself for the presidential fight, he is being cheered on from over the water. A picture of the junior senator from Massachusetts recently adorned the cover of Le Nouvel Observateur, a left-wing French magazine, under the title “The man who can beat Bush”. Since, according to a recent poll, only 6% of Europeans strongly approve of George Bush's handling of foreign policy, that is recommendation enough.

But Mr Kerry also has family ties that make him so beguiling to Europeans. His grandfather, it transpires, came from a tiny Czech village. His first cousin, Brice Lalonde, served as environment minister in a French Socialist government in 1988-92. Mr Lalonde told the French press that he recently saw his cousin, and talked fondly of shared childhood holidays in Brittany. He commented in Liberation that “our mothers were sisters. But I don't want to damage him, because you know that at the moment it is better not to appear too French in the United States.”

Quite so. At a recent Washington breakfast, Tom DeLay, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, greeted guests with the words: “Good morning, or bonjour as John Kerry would say.” The senator is indeed reportedly fluent in French, and is even said to have chatted up Teresa Heinz, now his wife, in the language. He can also trot out phrases in other European languages. The correspondent for Stern, a German magazine, noted approvingly that Mr Kerry had not only expressed deep concern to him about the state of American-European relations, but done it in German, saying: “I am really concerned. Seien Sie sicher.”

The flattering effect that this has on Europeans should not be underestimated. It grates deeply that Mr Bush appears neither to know nor to care much about the old continent. By contrast Mr Kerry, who went to a Swiss boarding-school while his father was a diplomat in Berlin, is seen as a throwback to a more sophisticated, Europhile era in which the American elite naturally looked across the Atlantic. As Stern rhapsodised to its readers, “Bush quotes the Bible, Kerry Pablo Neruda. Bush likes local novels, Kerry loves Shakespeare. While Bush doesn't read the newspaper and is proud of it, Kerry reads Le Monde.” As well as wrapping up the French, German and Swiss votes, Mr Kerry would also run strongly in Portugal, courtesy of his wife, who was born in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

Naturally there is also a political element to the Europeans' Kerryphilia. The standard phrase among those who rail against American foreign policy these days is “I'm not anti-American, I'm anti-Bush.” This division between the American people and their elected leader is a little too convenient. But it is true that Republican presidents tend to emphasise the aspects of American life that are most alien to the European elite: religion, guns, militarism, and hostility to the welfare state and the green lobby. By contrast, Mr Kerry is sound on two hot-button issues dear to Europeans: the Kyoto treaty on climate change, and the death penalty. And while Mr Kerry may have voted for war with Iraq, most Europeans assume that he would have been less gung-ho about rushing ahead without a broader international coalition. All this means, in the words of Thomas Klau, a columnist for FT Deutschland, that Mr Kerry is “the dream candidate for the old world”.

European journalists may have no problem giving voice to their longing for an end to the Bush presidency. But European political leaders must be more cautious. Over the past couple of months Germany and France have made a concerted effort to rebuild relations with the Americans. Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, has just completed a trip to Washington that was designed to demonstrate that his long quarrel with Mr Bush was over. This week French and American troops launched a joint operation to stabilise Haiti, an event hailed in Paris as marking a reconciliation between the two countries.

As for Mr Bush, although his campaign strategists may have fun with Mr Kerry's French connections, he will want to be careful about exposing himself to Mr Kerry's charge that he has alienated the European allies. All sides are likely to use the 60th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings on June 6th as a photo-opportunity to demonstrate that ties between the United States and Europe are back on a sure footing.

The enduring Atlantic divide

Besides, whoever is in the White House, tensions between European and American approaches to the world seem sure to persist. The heyday of Atlanticism came to a close with the end of the cold war. The overriding concern for America now is the stabilisation of the “Greater Middle East”. And for all the hopeful talk, on both sides of the Atlantic, that this might be a new project on which to rebuild American-European relations, the reality is that attitudes and priorities will remain different.

Thus, polls suggest that Americans are far more sympathetic to Israel than Europeans and also more open to the use of military force. Some Europeans complain that American policymakers, preoccupied by the Middle East, take a cavalier approach to some extremely sensitive issues, such as Turkish membership of the European Union. One German analyst groans that “as far as the Americans are concerned, the discussion over whether Turkey should join the EU is already over. Now they want us to accept Israel, Palestine and Georgia.”

Were John Kerry to win the White House in November, such differences would remain. Indeed in some areas, such as trade, the quarrels between the two sides could get worse: Mr Bush has been bad enough, but Mr Kerry is deploying some alarmingly protectionist language in his campaign. The United States would remain preoccupied by the war on terror, pro-Israeli and willing to use its military strength unilaterally. Mr Kerry might explain American views more tactfully than Mr Bush. He might even do it in French. But transatlantic tensions would endure.

Commentary feature loos at European attitudes to the forthcoming US Presidential election and explains why many are rooting for Democrat candidate John Kerry.

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